{"id":5309,"date":"2025-03-04T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=5309"},"modified":"2025-03-06T13:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T13:39:42","slug":"voices-on-the-rise-a-conversation-with-william-linegar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/opine\/2025\/03\/04\/voices-on-the-rise-a-conversation-with-william-linegar\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices on the rise: A conversation with William Linegar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreword:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following interviews form part 4 of a series of interviews conducted during the General Election. The author interviewed four current UoA students and alumni who stood for election for four UK political parties. In this Mustafa speaks to William Linegar, a Scottish Greens candidate and a student at the University of Aberdeen. These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n

Can you tell us a little about yourself, William?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am William Linegar, I am 28, and a candidate for the Scottish Greens Party from
\nAberdeenshire and Kincardine. I am in my second year of a Zoology degree at the
\nUniversity of Aberdeen. I’m originally Australian, but my family lived in Brussels for quite a
\nwhile and that’s probably where I’ve spent most of my life so far. And then we moved to
\nEngland in 2017, and we’ve been in Scotland for almost three years now. And I have to
\nsay, so far, I\u2019ve really loved being in Scotland.<\/p>\n

Did you apply any of the skills learned during your degree in zoology to your work<\/strong>
\nin politics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’ t know if I necessarily needed experience at the university to do work in politics
\nbecause I\u2019ve done political stuff before. I was involved in the Green Party when we lived in
\nEngland as well, I was doing a lot of stuff there. It had a lot of similar values to the Scottish Greens Party despite being very different. So, joining the Scottish Greens up here in Aberdeen was kind of like a resumption of my previous activities rather than starting
\nsomething entirely new, so I felt comfortable going into it. I didn’t really feel like I needed to learn anything new or have any new skills to transition into politics in Scotland.<\/p>\n

Why the Scottish Greens Party? What were the key values of the Scottish Greens<\/strong>
\nParty that aligned with yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am deeply concerned about the environment and what’ s happening now, and what’ s
\npredicted to happen into the future. We’re already seeing temperatures and weather events
\nwhich 10 years ago were forecasted to happen closer to the middle of the century, so things are changing and they’ re changing quite quickly. And it’ s frustrating to me that we don’t seem to be doing enough about that, and of course as you know, various climate and nature crises become more and more obvious; other political parties are finally starting to
\nget on the bandwagon and finally starting to increase their own promises about the
\nenvironment. I’m still interested in staying with the Greens because they’re the only major
\nUK political party which is left of centre, and that’s very much where I find myself naturally
\nsitting on the political spectrum.<\/p>\n

What has your experience been with campaigning?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was pretty good, actually. So, where I am in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, it wasn’t a target area for us. So, it didn’t have a lot of resources for us to campaign. And we didn’t have a huge schedule of campaigning activities. Our focus was more on the city, because we are the Green Party for Aberdeen City and Shire. That’s one branch of the party together.<\/p>\n

So, we prioritized in the city. And indeed, we got a higher vote in the city. So that was worth doing. So, my campaign was a bit more relaxed. I went to Portlethen, and I was knocking on doors there. And I was hearing about what some people think we should focus on, mostly around social support for people who need it.<\/p>\n

What skills does a young politician like you have to employ to ensure equal<\/strong>
\nrepresentation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You need to be able to present yourself well you need to be able to articulate clearly and
\nyou need to be able to communicate what you’re thinking quite well and quite easily to
\nother people. You need to be able to answer questions you need to not be afraid of people knowing who you are and knowing what you look like and listening to you and judging what you’re saying or standing by!<\/p>\n

What is the most significant problem that Scotland\u2019s facing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not happy with the democratic deficit that we have here in Scotland, by which I mean, yes, we do have Holyrood, we do have a Scottish government and a Scottish parliament for dealing with devolved laws. The problem is it’s a little bit fragile; all it would take to get
\nrid of the Scottish government is a simple majority vote in the House of Commons that just
\nsays, ‘ There is no Scottish government,’ done, finished, gone. So, I think if you’ re going
\nto have a Scottish government for Scotland then it needs to have some slightly more
\nconcrete abilities; it needs to be on a slightly firmer foundation and it needs to have more
\nteeth. One of the main things the Greens talk about, of course, is independence: we would
\nprefer for Scotland to be independent, entirely; failing that, stronger devolution with some
\nmore legally concrete foundations and some more powers.<\/p>\n

What are the basic responsibilities of the government? Which provisions are<\/strong>
\nnecessary for every citizen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that what a government basically is in theory is a treasurer for the citizens of the
\ncountry, basically because obviously governments make laws, and they enforce things. But
\nwhat it all comes back to is money, and how you choose to allocate money, because
\nanything that the government wants to do costs money. But if you ask me, I think the
\nabsolute priority should be fulfilling the basic needs of comfortable human existence, which
\nis food, water, shelter. And in the 21st century, energy and communication. Those things
\nare essential for what we consider to be a modern and comfortable standard of living. And
\nthere is no reason that we can’ t do that. There is so much money and knowledge and
\ntechnology just swirling around the planet. We can solve just about every human life
\nproblem that currently exists. If we’ re not solving that, that is a choice. That is because
\ncertain people are deciding that we don’ t need to and the money can stay where it is and
\nit doesn’t need to go where it’s needed.<\/p>\n

What do you perceive good leadership as and what has shaped this perception?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think good leadership fundamentally is having the correct balance between your own
\nconviction and between being able to compromise and take on board what other people
\nsay because you need both of those things. If you don’ t have any conviction yourself, then
\nyou don’ t have the mentality of a leader. If you’ re not interested in leading. You don’ t put
\nyourself forward to be a leader in the first place, which I think is a very important thing. If
\nyou want to be in politics, that means coming up against people who disagree with you and
\nwho have got into politics for different reasons, and a good leader should not only know
\nhow to hold their own against other entities but also to learn to co-exist with them.<\/p>\n

What is the long-term plan for this Greens candidate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been doing this for a few years now – seven, I guess. But if I retain the confidence
\nof the local party then I would like to try again. I would like to be a candidate again in the
\nfuture because I want to give people the option of voting Green if they wish to. This is not
\na particularly Green area of Scotland but more than a thousand people voted for me in the
\ngeneral election and those people might not have had the option of a voice at all if I wasn\u2019t
\nthere. They may have just stayed at home and been excluded entirely from the democratic
\nprocess. I gave them a reason to include themselves in that process and as of now I want
\nto keep doing that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foreword: The following interviews form part 4 of a series of interviews conducted during the General Election. The author interviewed four current UoA students and alumni who stood for election for four UK political parties. In this Mustafa speaks to William Linegar, a Scottish Greens candidate and a student at the University of Aberdeen. These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":5310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":45,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[254,383,382,379,380,311,1112,183,1113],"wf_post_folders":[337],"class_list":{"0":"post-5309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opine","8":"tag-aberdeen","9":"tag-alumnus","10":"tag-campaigning","11":"tag-election","12":"tag-leadership","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-scottish-greens","15":"tag-university-of-aberdeen","16":"tag-william-linegar"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mustafa Chughtai","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/mustafa05\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/IMG_6111-300x225.jpeg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opine<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opine<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Aberdeen<\/a>","alumnus<\/a>","campaigning<\/a>","election<\/a>","leadership<\/a>","Politics<\/a>","Scottish Greens<\/a>","University of Aberdeen<\/a>","William Linegar<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Aberdeen<\/span>","alumnus<\/span>","campaigning<\/span>","election<\/span>","leadership<\/span>","Politics<\/span>","Scottish Greens<\/span>","University of Aberdeen<\/span>","William Linegar<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 1 year ago","modified":"Updated 1 year ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 4 March 2025","modified":"Updated on 6 March 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 4 March 2025 10:00","modified":"Updated on 6 March 2025 13:39"},"featured_img_caption":"Photo provided by William Linegar","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5309"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5353,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions\/5353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5309"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=5309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}